Driving Energy Access: It’s Time to Shift Gears
By Carolina Barreto, Energy Access Director, Tetra Tech
Ryan Kilpatrick, Communications Director, Tetra Tech
Meg Dallett, Communications Principal, Tetra Tech
We can see it coming. Like an autonomous vehicle, self-driving toward us at high speed, ready to use technology and programming to make a critical decision: Stop? Swerve? Keep going?
What’s coming is the moment we stop talking about “on-grid” versus “off-grid” and start talking about energy access and how our work intersects with climate change, social justice, and future trends. Are we ready to put our own tech and programming to the test?
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Image: Baobab+
Shifting Our Approach
We’re moving toward a holistic approach to energy access, where on-grid and off-grid meet. Off-grid used to be a tiny sector; now it’s a mature industry that has lessons to share with traditional utilities. Companies supporting off-grid customers in Africa and Asia now offer remote utility monitoring services to fire-risk areas like California. Off-grid technologies like mini-grids can be attached to the main grid, and these can switch to island mode and continue providing power during a disaster. This is what climate resiliency looks like.
But serving millions of new customers means many off-grid start-ups are now as big as traditional utilities, facing the same challenges. Lots of customers have never changed a lightbulb or bought a refrigerator – they don’t know the best options to buy or how to use energy efficiently. In Kenya, two million low-income customers got electricity and then a couple years later decided not to top up their meters because it was too expensive and inconvenient. Integrating these customers into energy services means thinking more broadly about what the service is: It’s not “the grid” or “off-grid,” it’s appliances and demonstrations and financing and repair and customer service.
We were excited to see the latest Off-Grid Solar Market Trends Report include information on the rapidly increasing sales of productive use appliances, such as solar water pumps and cooling systems. These products represent the incredible potential in the nexus of energy, agriculture, water, and health.
Shifting to Neutral Climate Impact
It’s been easy to see energy access work as having low climate impact. It’s mostly solar panels, right? But what happens to the panels and batteries and equipment when they lose their usefulness?
GOGLA has been pioneering circular economy principles for years, and we’ve worked together to advocate for policy and regulatory environments that enable companies and organizations to build these kinds of product cycles. Where we used to talk almost exclusively about recycling e-waste, now we focus more on reducing, reusing, and maintaining systems. Our understanding about how to deal responsibly with waste and build the right kind of infrastructure is continually growing. Plus, our circular economy work with USAID shows that innovative pathways to net-zero can create sustainable economic growth and jobs and reduce supply chain risk.
Shifting the Stereotype
Generally, the off-grid sector has been a leader in gender equality and creating meaningful economic opportunities for women. Women make great solar home system salespeople—they are very successful at building trust, and they tend to stay in their jobs longer than men. On average, they sell fewer systems, but the sales they make have better credit risk profiles because they’ve taken the time to make sure their customers understand what they can afford. With women involved, infrastructure and systems are being repaired when needed, customers are better equipped to invest in long-term solar purchases, and we get that much closer to circular economy principles.
If we think about energy access more broadly – and the global energy sector as a whole – we see that we still need to change some hearts and minds about what women can do. But there are encouraging stories: In Guatemala, migration has left many towns and villages without most of their predominantly male labor forces. That means infrastructure assets like energy distribution lines aren’t being serviced. After engaging with the Tetra Tech-implemented USAID Engendering Industries program, the power utility, EEGSA, designed a course to train women on how to service the power lines. They met a business need and increased women’s participation in the workforce at the same time.
Shifting to a New Model
Finally, what’s a “shifting” metaphor without mentioning electric vehicles? EVs merge on- and off-grid tools and ideas. We’re all trying to figure out how to make them affordable. We want to avoid carbon emissions, but we need a just transition where everyone has access to EVs. Not just Tesla and big buses in cities, but also small vehicles like tuk-tuks in rural areas. We need to dedicate the time and resources to finding strategies that bring EVs to many different kinds of customers.
With the EV industry still in its earliest stages, this is a great opportunity to start off on the right foot with gender. Transportation is still a male-dominated sector, but already we see entire fleets of EVs in India with female drivers. Not only does this create jobs for women, but it also means more EVs are providing services to female riders.
GOGLA and Tetra Tech have already helped put in place policies based on the pay-as-you-go model that are benefiting EVs, and the industry will have plenty more lessons to learn from GOGLA’s work going forward. We’re looking forward to helping it get there, and to reaching a final destination of universal energy access. Let’s go!
Ryan Kilpatrick, Communications Director, Tetra Tech
Meg Dallett, Communications Principal, Tetra Tech
We can see it coming. Like an autonomous vehicle, self-driving toward us at high speed, ready to use technology and programming to make a critical decision: Stop? Swerve? Keep going?
What’s coming is the moment we stop talking about “on-grid” versus “off-grid” and start talking about energy access and how our work intersects with climate change, social justice, and future trends. Are we ready to put our own tech and programming to the test?
.jpg)
Image: Baobab+
Shifting Our Approach
We’re moving toward a holistic approach to energy access, where on-grid and off-grid meet. Off-grid used to be a tiny sector; now it’s a mature industry that has lessons to share with traditional utilities. Companies supporting off-grid customers in Africa and Asia now offer remote utility monitoring services to fire-risk areas like California. Off-grid technologies like mini-grids can be attached to the main grid, and these can switch to island mode and continue providing power during a disaster. This is what climate resiliency looks like.
But serving millions of new customers means many off-grid start-ups are now as big as traditional utilities, facing the same challenges. Lots of customers have never changed a lightbulb or bought a refrigerator – they don’t know the best options to buy or how to use energy efficiently. In Kenya, two million low-income customers got electricity and then a couple years later decided not to top up their meters because it was too expensive and inconvenient. Integrating these customers into energy services means thinking more broadly about what the service is: It’s not “the grid” or “off-grid,” it’s appliances and demonstrations and financing and repair and customer service.
We were excited to see the latest Off-Grid Solar Market Trends Report include information on the rapidly increasing sales of productive use appliances, such as solar water pumps and cooling systems. These products represent the incredible potential in the nexus of energy, agriculture, water, and health.
Shifting to Neutral Climate Impact
It’s been easy to see energy access work as having low climate impact. It’s mostly solar panels, right? But what happens to the panels and batteries and equipment when they lose their usefulness?
GOGLA has been pioneering circular economy principles for years, and we’ve worked together to advocate for policy and regulatory environments that enable companies and organizations to build these kinds of product cycles. Where we used to talk almost exclusively about recycling e-waste, now we focus more on reducing, reusing, and maintaining systems. Our understanding about how to deal responsibly with waste and build the right kind of infrastructure is continually growing. Plus, our circular economy work with USAID shows that innovative pathways to net-zero can create sustainable economic growth and jobs and reduce supply chain risk.
Shifting the Stereotype
Generally, the off-grid sector has been a leader in gender equality and creating meaningful economic opportunities for women. Women make great solar home system salespeople—they are very successful at building trust, and they tend to stay in their jobs longer than men. On average, they sell fewer systems, but the sales they make have better credit risk profiles because they’ve taken the time to make sure their customers understand what they can afford. With women involved, infrastructure and systems are being repaired when needed, customers are better equipped to invest in long-term solar purchases, and we get that much closer to circular economy principles.
If we think about energy access more broadly – and the global energy sector as a whole – we see that we still need to change some hearts and minds about what women can do. But there are encouraging stories: In Guatemala, migration has left many towns and villages without most of their predominantly male labor forces. That means infrastructure assets like energy distribution lines aren’t being serviced. After engaging with the Tetra Tech-implemented USAID Engendering Industries program, the power utility, EEGSA, designed a course to train women on how to service the power lines. They met a business need and increased women’s participation in the workforce at the same time.
Shifting to a New Model
Finally, what’s a “shifting” metaphor without mentioning electric vehicles? EVs merge on- and off-grid tools and ideas. We’re all trying to figure out how to make them affordable. We want to avoid carbon emissions, but we need a just transition where everyone has access to EVs. Not just Tesla and big buses in cities, but also small vehicles like tuk-tuks in rural areas. We need to dedicate the time and resources to finding strategies that bring EVs to many different kinds of customers.
With the EV industry still in its earliest stages, this is a great opportunity to start off on the right foot with gender. Transportation is still a male-dominated sector, but already we see entire fleets of EVs in India with female drivers. Not only does this create jobs for women, but it also means more EVs are providing services to female riders.
GOGLA and Tetra Tech have already helped put in place policies based on the pay-as-you-go model that are benefiting EVs, and the industry will have plenty more lessons to learn from GOGLA’s work going forward. We’re looking forward to helping it get there, and to reaching a final destination of universal energy access. Let’s go!
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